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Today we’re going to visit another “Stealth Junk” vendor. It’s Boston Market. They show ads of rotisserie chicken and fresh looking veggies. However, once again, we’ll be comparing them to that great American icon of junk McDonald’s.

Entrees –

Boston Market 1/2 rotisserie chickenCalories 590Fat grams 27

McDonald’s Big MacCalories 540Grams of Fat 29

Sides – We’ll be listing 2 sides since that’s what a Boston Market “meal” comes with

Mac & CheeseCalories 330Fat grams 12

Mashed PotatoesCalories 270Fat Grams 11

Total SidesCalories 600Fat grams 23

McDonalds French Fries Large FriesCalories 570Fat grams 30

So much for your nice healthy dinner. Since someone asked, and in case any of the rest of you are wondering, the calorie counts and fat grams come straight off the restaurants’ web sites.

I went out looking to see if there was anything new my husband hasn’t tried for his cold sores. He doesn’t get them often, but when he does, they make him miserable. Because he’s been sick, he now has a cold sore.

I found this and I’m going to spend a couple of minutes debunking them.

Ingredient #1 – Leptospermum scoparium oil – fancy word for Tea Tree Oil – Leptospermum scoparium is the latin name for the New Zealand Tea TreeIngredient #2 – Aloes – I’m sure that they mean Aloe VeraIngredient #3 – Menthol – The same stuff you get in your linament & vapor rubIngredient #4 – Clove – The same stuff you put in your pumpkin pieIngredient #5 – Eucalypt – I’m sure that they mean Eucalyptus which in your linament & vapor rubIngredient #6 – Thyme – The same stuff you have in your kitchen. Great on roasts, btw. Ingredient #6 – Comfrey Root – This is standard herbal stuff, but still quite dangerous. It has several active compounds and has been shown to cause pre-cancerous conditions in rodents. Rodents and humans have quite similar immune systems. It can cause liver failure. I’ll refer to you to the wikipedia article on it.Ingredient #7 – Lanoline – I’m pretty sure you know this as lanolin and it comes from sheep.Ingredient #8 – Plantain – This basically the wild, un-hybridized version of your big yellow grocery store bananaIngredient # 9 + #16 – Potassium Chloride & Salt – Regular table salt is Sodium Chloride. Some people are sensitive to sodium in their diet so they eat salt that has been “cut” with Potassium Chloride. It still looks and mostly tastes like “regular” salt but it’s usually called Lite Salt. Ingredient #10- Hydrogen Peroxide – You know this as the stuff in the big brown bottle you pour on cutsIngredient #11 – H20 – I’m that what they mean here is water. You know – you get it from your faucet. Ingredient #12 – Beeswax – Bees make it – candles to cosmetics- human use it. This is starting to sound a lot like the lip balm I use now. Ingredient #13 – Olive Oil – If you don’t really should have this in your kitchen. It can be quite good for you. Ingredient #14 – Vitamin E Oil – Well, vitamin E doesn’t come in any other form and odds are you have this in your medicine cabinent already. Ingredient #15 – Vitamin C – Odds are you have this in your medicine cabinet. Ingredient #16 – see #9

There’s not $5 worth of ingredients in this and they’re selling it for $23.95, claiming that it will stop cold sore outbreaks completely. Cold sores are a viral illness and we’re just beginning to develop antiviral medications. Why would pharmaceutical companies spend billions of dollars developing antiviral meds when you can whip something up in your kitchen for $5?

I’m not saying it doesn’t work for some people. There’s this thing called the placebo effect. You can give some people a sugar pill, swear to them it’s drug, and they’ll get better. That’s why drug companies do this thing called “double blind” testing. That means that neither the person giving the medication nor the person taking it know which is real and which is fake.

I just don’t think that charging people $23.95 for a placebo that shouldn’t cost more than $5 is very fair. Still, if people are stupid enough to pay, more power to the guys at Viranox.

As many of you know, I’ve torn some cartilage in my knee. Went to see the doctor last week and he looked me over, gave me a shot of cortisone in the knee, and told me to see him next week to check on my progress. I stop at the appointment desk on the way out and pick up my card. The gal at the desk says “We have an opening on Thursday. Will 11:00 work for you?” I pay and leave, sticking the card in my purse and adding the appointment to my PDA.

I get to the doctors office today. Lo and behold, she’s made my appointment for two weeks out – it’s next Thursday. Their office is bad enough WITH an appointment. It’s usually a 2 hour wait. I don’t really have all day to hang around and wait to see if they can see me. Worse still, I have to make special arrangements to drive to work just so that I can go to the doctor. I have to get my truck back from my husband because their office isn’t on the train route and I mass-commute to work. I no longer pay for a parking spot, so I have to scramble for one of the rare public parking spots. Now, it’s all for naught.

It all made me angry. We’re supposed to sit in the waiting room like good little sheep waiting for his holiness the doctor to see us at his convenience. It’s not like we have lives that are being interrupted or anything. I don’t know about any of the rest of you, but I’m self employed. I work as a consultant and I make *at least* as much as the doctor does. I went off at the receptionist and told her to cancel my appointment. I’m firing my doctor. “

Like the doctor, my time is money. If I’m not working billable hours, I’m not getting paid. Worse yet, not only am I not getting paid, I’m having to pay the doctor. Talk about double-dipping. I make just as much money as your doctor does and your stupid over scheduling means that I have to wait two hours even with an appointment. I can only imagine how long I’m going to have to wait if I don’t have one. I’m not some cow in a cattle chute and I won’t be herded around like one. It’s very rude and very disrespectful to every single patient to make them sit around like this. I don’t see where you people get off deciding that you are soooo much more important than the rest of the world that we need to drop what we’re doing and wait on you for hours and hours. If I was coming here to work on your computers and I kept you waiting for two hours, you’d fire me. I don’t see why the relationship going the other way is supposed to be any different.”